


The Two Riders

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [25]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 17:06:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Planets are burning. The universe is falling apart. And a previously peaceful species is responsible for it. The Doctor suspects someone is behind it. But one person couldn't orchestrate all of it, not even one of the Doctor's own people. It would take at least two...





	The Two Riders

Even in her youth when she lived with her parents on Earth, Charley Pollard remembered how she always loved stargazing. Every opportunity she had she would sit outside on the grounds of her family’s stately home, staying out for as long as her parents would allow her, gazing up at the stars. She had once tried to learn the names of all the constellations, and tried to identify them, but she never got very far; she was always too busy admiring the beauty of the stars themselves to care about any patterns they made. They stars had always inspired hope in Charley: that wherever she was, whoever she was, and whatever she did in life, she was part of something much bigger. Theirs was not the only world out there, and that gave Charley comfort.

The irony was not lost on her that she was now exploring other worlds. Just as she had as a child, Charley sat in a comfortable chair and watched the stars, though she had a much closer view out of the transparent ceiling of the TARDIS, hanging in space just as Charley would sometimes see hot air balloons float through the sky from her family’s estate. The stars gently moved by as the TARDIS drifted lazily through the universe, her view constantly changing as she contemplated just how many stars must be out there, and how many planets must each star have, and how many people must live on all those planets. Rather than making her feel small, the new perspective she had just made her feel even more hopeful than before. She no longer had to hope that her little world was part of something bigger. Now she knew, and the something bigger was even bigger than she could ever have imagined.

The TARDIS drifted close to a planet, about the same size as her home, and looking rather similar. The seas appeared the same deep blue, although they were smaller than Earth’s. Charley had only explored a small portion of her home planet, but one of the first things she had done after joining the Doctor on his travels was take a look at her home from above and see the entire world with her own eyes. Even remembering the sight took her breath away now with how beautiful her tiny, cosmically insignificant world truly was. She took another look at the planet they were drifting past, close enough that she could make it out amongst the billions of other lights out there and even see a few of the larger features. She watched it drift past them, admiring how similar it really did look to Earth, and pointing out all of the differences she could see. That continent was bigger than any Earth had. There was a grey dot in the middle of that small landmass, presumably a city big enough to be seen from space in the light of the nearby star. That was the biggest mountain range she had ever seen, spanning most of the way across the island it stood on. Charley gazed, fascinated at the planet, and wondered how similar it would be to her planet on the surface. Then she blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw a dot of red in the corner of her eye, on the edge of one of the landmasses. She walked to her left to get a closer look, but she didn’t need to: it was spreading like fire. No, she thought, not _like_ fire. It _was_ fire, raging across the entire landmass, moving fast enough that she could see its progress from space. She stumbled back, aghast at the speed of the destruction of the planet.

“Doctor?” she called, hoping beyond hope he would hear her. “Doctor!” She called again when she didn’t receive a reply. She was about to call a third time when she heard footsteps running towards the console room from one of the corridors.

“Charley?” the Doctor came running, looking impeccable as ever, long green coat billowing behind him as he joined Charley at her side. “I heard you calling, is something wrong?”

Charley didn’t say anything, but pointed up through the ceiling at the planet she had been looking at. The Doctor’s eyes followed her finger and he too gave a short gasp when he saw the fire which had now reached almost halfway across the main continent they could see. When Charley tore her gaze elsewhere, she could see the other landmasses in sight were undergoing the same fate: flames spreading across faster than should be possible, turning the green, lush looking world into desolation.

“What in the…” the Doctor trailed off, walking briskly over to the scanner. Charley wanted to join him, but she couldn’t move, her eyes transfixed on the horror she wished she could stop watching, but couldn’t tear her sight away from. She forced herself to blink several times and sat back down, her neck starting to ache from looking up at such a harsh angle. She looked back, and with her fresh perspective saw a myriad of dots around the planet, some bigger than others, but none large enough to identify. However, she had a horrible suspicion she knew exactly what they were: an invading alien force, destroying the planet’s surface for whatever horrid purposes they had.

“Venra…” the Doctor identified the planet. “But this isn’t supposed to be happening, there isn’t supposed to be any kind of invasion or even conflict on Venra for at least another hundred or so years.”

“Doctor, it’s horrible!” Charley exclaimed, finally unable to contain herself. “The whole planet is burning!”

As Charley watched, the landmasses lost any semblance of green left as the fires spread across the entire surface. Once the land had burned, the seas began to shrink as well, far faster than Charley could have imagined. The Doctor walked back to her, about to say something, but unable to bring himself to speak as he watched the entire planet reduced to a featureless, destroyed corpse of a world in minutes. Charley didn’t have any words left, the sight was too horrifying to describe. It didn’t seem possible, and yet the two had just watched it happen, right in front of them.

The dots around the planet started to shift and move, gathering together and starting to move away from the world. Some stayed, to harvest whatever resources were left on the surface Charley assumed, but most began to leave to find a new planet to burn.

“Absolutely not,” the Doctor said, his voice steel. “Let’s find out who you are before you get away.”

He ran to the controls and pulled a few levers, the TARDIS lurching closer to the planet before veering off to get a good look at what Charley could now clearly see were spaceships. They featured a simple design, looking more like yachts with wings than Charley was expecting, like someone had taken a ship meant for sailing the seas and barely adapted the technology to sail in space instead, adding wings and huge engines to the back as well as advanced looking devices all over, although all of the ships had large and deadly looking weapons attached anywhere there was space for them. The design looked brutalist, with no expense spared on flair or aesthetics at all. No colour or pattern or design choices at all. They weren’t even painted, all of them simple gunmetal grey all over aside from whatever glowing white lights could be seen. Just from looking at them Charley could tell something about the designers: they weren’t interested in exploring or enjoying a trip through space. These ships were designed for destruction and nothing more.

“That’s impossible,” the Doctor muttered, observing the scanner which was giving him a much closer look at what appeared to be the flagship, the largest and the only one with any paint or design choices: the nose of the ship was painted a dark red, with a name emblazoned in black in the middle of the sea of crimson: _The Eviscerator_. How cheerful, Charley thought to herself, then berated herself for being flippant. This spaceship had just destroyed a planet and every person on the surface.

“What’s wrong, Doctor?” she finally dragged herself away from her thoughts and asked.

“That’s a Rokudan warship,” the Doctor explained. “A particularly advanced one as well.”

“That’s...bad, but why is it impossible?” Charley didn’t understand why the Doctor was trying to prove why it shouldn’t be there.

“Because by the spacetime location we’re in, the Rokudans shouldn’t even be able to leave their world for at least another two or three hundred years,” he explained, and Charley realised just how much more serious the situation was than it was before. “And they certainly shouldn’t be able to come all this way out here and still have enough power to do...do _that_ to a populated world for thousands of years yet. Something is very very wrong.”

“So how can that be possible?” Charley asked, desperate to know what they could do. The idea of that level of destruction happening to another planet, any other planet, filled her with more dread than she had felt in a very long time.

“The Rokudans have always been a mostly peaceful species,” the Doctor continued. “But there have always been a few more warlike of them around the place. But they really shouldn’t be able to do this, the species and especially the warriors were never at the forefront of technological advancement.”

“Which means...” Charley gestured for him to explain why that was relevant to the destruction.

“Which means,” the Doctor turned to face her, genuine worry in his expression. “By the time they had the technology to do this kind of thing, everyone else had the technology to stop them. The Rokudans never made any major conquests throughout history, because most of them didn’t want to. Which means either somebody has made the people of Rokuda to be more warlike in general…”

“Or someone is giving them weapons they really shouldn’t have yet,” Charley finished his sentence, the Doctor’s worried expression spreading to her.

“Precisely, well done Charley,” the Doctor smiled at her and despite the awful situation Charley felt her heart flutter. The Doctor’s expression turned cold and serious again. “Either option is undesirable, and either option means somebody is changing history.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Charley piped up, and the Doctor’s worried expression turned more worried with a hint of confusion.

“How could that possibly be good, Charley?” he asked, and Charley for a moment felt silly for bringing it up. “If someone is changing history, who knows what else they could change?”

“But it means that if we stop them changing history, we can put everything back the way it was, doesn’t it?” Charley desperately tried to explain her logic. “So that world, Venra I think you said?” the Doctor nodded. “We can save it! We can stop it from being...from being…” Charley couldn’t even finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to, as the Doctor rushed towards her and pulled her into a hug.

“Charley Pollard, you genius!” he congratulated her, and Charley’s heart skipped a beat again. “Of course! We can stop this from happening in the first place! We just need to find out how history has been altered and we can stop it at the source!”

“Oh,” Charley didn’t sound enthused by the suggestion. “That sounds like it could be difficult, and take a long time.”

“Not especially,” the Doctor dismissed her worries. “The TARDIS can track that kind of temporal distortion, especially one this big.”

“You don’t seem very worried about this problem anymore,” Charley pointed out.

“Well, if we can stop it, it won’t be a problem anymore, will it Charley?” the Doctor didn’t even turn back to her.

“But what about all the people getting hurt? Getting killed?” Charley pleaded.

“I don’t...we can stop it from ever happening, Charley,” the Doctor said, confused by Charley’s worries. “They won’t remember it happening because it will have never happened.”

“But it’s happening right now!” Charley burst out. “It doesn’t matter if they remember it or not, it’s still happening! People are suffering right now, and we should stop it.”

The Doctor sighed. “I know,” he said, and suddenly Charley realised that he had not ignored this train of thought. “These people are suffering, and I wish I could do more to help, but the best thing we can do is stop this from happening as quickly as we can.” He turned back to the console.

“Doctor, I-” Charley started to apologise, realising that she had not helped the situation and in fact had only made the Doctor feel guilty.

“No, don’t apologise Charley,” the Doctor turned to her, a small smile appearing on his lips. “You’re right, and I’m glad that it’s something you felt needed to be said. It shows you care.”

“But you care as well!” Charley berated herself. “You cared too, and I just made you feel bad about it.”

“Charley, I like that you said that,” he reassured her. “If I seem like I don’t care, how can I expect you to trust me? How can I expect anyone to trust or believe me? I am trying to do the right thing, but if I seem like I’m not interested in other people, then what’s the point?”

“I suppose so,” Charley said, more to herself.

The Doctor turned his attention back to the console, pressing buttons and pulling switches and occasionally humming and talking to himself while Charley watched him work. She always marveled at how lost he could get in the TARDIS: when he was like this she doubted even the loudest alarm would snap him out of his focus. Multiple times in the past she would try to get his attention to point out something she saw he’d missed, and had to resort to physically grabbing his attention in order to achieve that. This time, however, she left it to him. She’d never seen him so determined to find what he was looking for. Information flashed up on screens which he read and dismissed and factored into his logic faster than she could even process that the screen had actual words on it. Finally, he stood up, a set of coordinates flashing on a screen in front of him.

“Here we are,” he announced. “This is where history started being really altered.”

“So that’s where whoever is changing things, started changing things?” Charley asked, relieved that they had a destination. They could do something about it now. She wasn’t sitting around waiting for the problem to get worse.

“Well, technically, no,” the Doctor admitted and Charley frowned in disappointment. “It isn’t really possible to pinpoint the exact timespace location where history was diverted, but we can get to a point where it really started to take effect and limit the damage as much as possible.”

“So, we can’t stop the problem from happening after all?” Charley accused.

“Not entirely, but we can stop any major changes from happening,” the Doctor said. “We can stop those people from suffering, Charley, I promise.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Charley said, the image of the burning planet having not left her mind since she saw it. She couldn’t let that happen, she told herself. Whatever power she had to stop the horrific events she witnessed, she would have to use it. “Where are we going?”

“Rokuda,” the Doctor announced. “A fairly obvious place for the problem to start, but I had to find the right time period. It looks like they’ve been out and conquering other planets for about three decades now, so that’s a good place to start.” He looked Charley in the eyes, and the fire burning in them was just as fierce as that which had ravaged the planet Venra. “Are you ready?”

“Always,” Charley confirmed, and the Doctor pulled a lever as the TARDIS set into motion, pulling away from the world and towards the start of the problem. Charley held on for balance as she looked up and watched the stars fly past them, the universe pass them by and in the blink of an eye her view was totally different. Galaxies swirled in the distance as they moved, and Charley caught the tiniest glimpses of planets and moons and asteroids and beauty as they appeared in sight and shot past faster than she could even realise she saw something.

The TARDIS started to slow down after a while, and Charley got a better look at what was passing. She had no idea where they had come from anymore, they were now far enough across the universe. The magnitude of how much more advanced the Rokudans were than they should have been hit Charley now. She knew it was vital they stopped them.

The ship shuddered to a halt, and the transparent ceiling closed. Charley looked towards the door, preparing herself to exit, no idea what would be on the other side. She looked at the Doctor and saw that he was thinking the same.

“Unfamiliar territory for both of us, and trillions of lives on the line,” the Doctor remarked.

“An average Tuesday, then?” Charley tried to lighten the mood a little. They needed to be focused, but they were, as always, in it together.

The Doctor smiled, took Charley’s hand, and opened the door. They stepped out into a void of grey, but as Charley’s eyes adjusted to the light she began to see details and realised that they were in a city block, all the same grey as the spaceships she had seen earlier. Every building was an almost perfectly square block, built around and on top of each other in rough geometric lines, leaving just enough space to walk between them, as if whoever had built the place where everyone would live wanted it to be as efficient as possible and didn’t care about aesthetics, but didn’t have the patience to line up everything perfectly. Neither of them saw any people or vehicles moving around outside, but they didn’t have much of a view, having landed in what appeared to be a side street.

“Well,” Charley started. “This is exciting.”

“It’s as if someone drained all the colour out of the entire planet,” the Doctor answered. Charley looked around, and though she saw some other buildings and utilities in the street, she agreed: she, the Doctor, and the TARDIS stuck out like three sore thumbs as the only things in view that weren’t painted a uniform gunmetal grey. “Somebody likes bland conformity, it would seem.”

“It’s very brutalist, isn’t it?” Charley observed. “I can’t even tell where the important people live, and that’s normally the first thing you notice.”

“We’ve only gotten a very small sampling of the city, Charley,” the Doctor reminded her. “We should probably explore a bit.”

“Do you think we should find disguises?” Charley asked. “We stand out a little, I think your coat is rather visible against the endless grey.”

“Charley, we don’t look anything like Rokudans anyway,” the Doctor told her. “Disguises would be a little pointless.”

“Okay then,” Charley retorted, a little put out that her plan to escape unwanted attention had been shot down so quickly. “What _do_ Rokudans look like, then?”

Before the Doctor had a chance to even open his mouth to describe one, a siren blared from the night sky above them, as a grey hovering craft descended upon the street. Charley started to get ready to run, but the Doctor grabbed her hand, holding her there.

“If we run, we look suspicious, we might be able to talk our way out,” he whispered.

“I didn’t get the impression they were the talking type before,” Charley hissed back.

“That was a battlefleet, the people on their homeworld might be more talkative,” he said. No sooner had he finished his sentence than two panels on the side of the craft’s nose slid open, and two complex and deadly looking guns emerged, pointed straight at the travellers.

“You were saying?” even in a situation involving guns being pointed at them, Charley could not resist the urge to be sarcastic.

“Okay, point taken, back to the TARDIS?” the Doctor suggested. The two turned just in time to see another, larger craft picking up the TARDIS in a huge claw, revealing a dead end behind it.

“Shall we try running?” Charley asked.

“Where are we going to run to?” the Doctor inquired, taking his hands out of his pockets and raising them slowly above his head, glancing at Charley to tell her to do the same thing. She followed suit, and the cockpit of the first craft opened, a figure in grey armour leaping out and landing on the ground on four legs apparently no worse for the wear, his craft remaining hovering. The Doctor and Charley took a step back and the guns followed their movement, but did not fire. The figure removed its helmet, its long, thin, slanted head rearing back to look properly at the intruders with its eyes set into the back of its head. After examining them for a minute, the officer stood as tall as its spider-like legs would allow, towering at least two feet taller than the Doctor, and the front of its head split open to reveal three rows of teeth as it spoke.

“Intruders are forbidden on this planet,” it said, voice almost too deep to be understood. “Intruders will be arrested on sight. You are intruders. You are under arrest.”

The Doctor leaned over to Charley. “_That_ is what a Rokudan looks like.”

“The intruders will be silent!”

The Doctor mimed zipping his mouth shut as the hovering craft descending further down, a hatch opening in the bottom of it. The Rokudan gestured for the Doctor and Charley to step inside and, lacking much of a choice, they did. As they entered, they saw the alien bend its four knees and leap into the air, landing back in the cockpit, pressing a button to close the cockpit and the hatch, leaving the Doctor and Charley in total darkness. Charley felt around to try to find a wall, but the two fell over as the craft lurched into motion, rising into the air and turning before launching forward at an impressive speed.

“Where do you think they’re taking us?” Charley asked.

“Most likely prison,” the Doctor admitted. “They don’t seem like the kind to be big on trials.”

“Be honest: how much trouble are we in already?” Charley asked, trying to mask the concern in her voice and cringing when it didn’t work.

“Well, they haven’t already killed us, so that’s hopeful,” he tried his best to reassure her, but even in the darkness he could tell Charley was worried. “We don’t have the TARDIS, but that’s fairly normal.”

“When do we ever have the option of just going back to the TARDIS and running away?” Charley pointed out.

“Exactly,” the Doctor nodded, although he realised that Charley couldn’t see it, so the gesture was pointless. “They’re taking us somewhere, presumably to see someone. We can only hope that this someone is connected to whoever is causing history to change.”

“Do you think that’s likely?” Charley asked.

“Well if someone managed to convince an entire species to be more warlike than usual, they’d have to be in a position of authority,” he reasoned. “And if someone walked up to you and handed you technology you could use to conquer the galaxy you’d be quite likely to put them in a position of command.”

“Assuming that someone didn’t just give them weapons and immediately leave,” Charley replied.

“Why would someone do that and not stick around to watch the results?” the Doctor questioned.

“Maybe they just wanted to liven things up,” she answered. “We might not find anything like this.”

“Come now, Charley,” the Doctor tried to lift her spirits again. “Pessimism doesn’t suit you.”

Charley tried very hard not to smile, and when she failed, she hoped the Doctor couldn’t see her. He, in fact, did, as his eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see that the hold they feared was featureless and they had little means of escape from was, in fact, just as featureless and inescapable as he had been worried it would be. There was little the two of them could do but wait to arrive at wherever they were being taken. The wait did not last long, however, as the fast hovercraft soon began to slow down, alerting the Doctor and Charley to the fact that they were very soon going to arrive. The craft set down just above the ground, and the hatch opened, letting light stream in and blinding Charley and the Doctor for a moment, who both covered their eyes to let them slowly adjust to being able to see again. They didn’t have long, as a Rokudan grabbed them both and marched them out of the craft to the front of a square building, much bigger than the others, and with a splash of the same crimson from the front of their warships on the front of the building, although lacking a name this time.

“I think we’ve found where the important people live, Doctor,” Charley remarked.

“The intruders will be silent!”

“Okay, okay, we’re quiet-” Charley shot back.

“The intruders will be _silent_!”

Charley said nothing, simply placing a finger to her lips. The Rokudan who grabbed them let them go, but continued to look intimidating as it retrieved an advanced and deadly looking rifle from its back. It did not point it at them, but the message was clear: behave or be shot. The travellers marched with the guard who brought them to another Rokudan, this one even bigger and wearing heavier armour. Neither of them said anything as the small of them saluted, turned and left. The large Rokudan, the captain Charley assumed, addressed them.

“You two will follow me. Silently.”

The Doctor and Charley nodded, and the Rokudan turned and marched towards the building. Charley turned her head to look at the Doctor.

“Do we run?” she mouthed as silently as she could move her lips.

“Where to?” the Doctor mouthed back. Charley communicated her inability to think of a good answer with a shrug, and decided it might be best to just follow the captain to wherever they were going. They entered the building, the interior just as grey as everything else on the planet. Charley was starting to get very bored of the colour grey, seeing that the walls, the ceiling, what sparse furniture there was, the stairs, even the carpet was the same shade of grey. She had almost started to lose track of what was what, everything had started blending into everything else, to the point that when they started to walk up the stairs she almost tripped multiple times because she could not see them for everything else.

The Doctor - who had tripped a couple of times - was the first to break the silence. “Don’t suppose you can tell us where we’re going?”

“Be _silent_.”

“I thought as much,” he said dryly, and though the captain did not reprimand his comment, he didn’t speak again for a minute. However, he could only hold out for a minute before talking again as they reached the top of the stairs and walked out into a central room with chairs lining the edges. “It’s just is incredibly boring not talking to anyone-”

“Be silent.”

“You must get so bored not being allowed to talk, and everything is already so grey and boring around here, surely you must-”

The captain turned around to hit the Doctor across the face with the butt of his gun, but before it could strike him a high but commanding voice rang out that reverberated across the entire room, seeming to come from all around them. “That’s enough!”

The captain stopped, standing up straight and saluting.

“Go.”

The captain saluted again, glared at the Doctor and Charley through its helmet, and left.

The Doctor and Charley stood in silence for as long as the Doctor could allow himself, but after four seconds his voice burst out again.

“Are you going to come and say hello? I presume you’re in charge here, so may I ask what we’re doing here?”

There was no response for a moment, and the Doctor called “hello?”. He called again to no response, but when he had gotten three letters into his third call of “hello?” a door was flung open to their left, and out stepped the first person dressed in anything but grey they had seen since arriving.

“Ah,” the Doctor and Charley sighed in unison as they identified the figure striding towards them, her black leather jacket and curly black hair flapping behind her despite the lack of wind.

“Hello Doctor!” the Rider called out to him. “So good to see you, we picked up your TARDIS almost the moment it started materialising and I thought I had to see you as soon as I could. The Rokudans were all too pleased to fetch you for me, since I am sort of in charge around here at the moment.”

“Of course it was you,” Charley complained. “Of course _you_ were the one changing history. Of course _you_ caused that planet to burn, and no doubt you’re doing it to all sorts of other planets too.”

“Burning planets?” the Rider answered Charley’s question despite herself, although she looked confused. “That sounds...macabre, and definitely isn’t happening.”

“True, not yet,” Charley admitted. “But we came from the future. We saw the results of this little project of yours. We watched an entire planet set on fire and destroyed, and now we find it was your fault.”

“Rubbish!” the Rider glared at Charley. “I’ve got everything under control, and the Rokudan fleets aren’t allowed to destroy any planets.”

“I take it you admit responsibility, then?” the Doctor accused, giving Charley a look that told her to keep. “Or are you going to shift the blame?”

“Don’t be absurd, of course it was me!” the Rider seemed offended at the notion. She really wanted the Doctor to know what she had done, Charley thought. She was surprised she hadn’t left a note carved into an asteroid again. “Of course I gave them the stuff they needed to really advance their tech!”

“So that was it?” the Doctor asked. “You just walked up, offered them weapons beyond anything they’d dreamed and they just took it and started taking planets?”

“They took their own planet first,” the Rider explained. “They had to convince all the artists and the workers and the pacifists to let them do their thing, but that isn’t hard when your guns are so much bigger than anyone else’s. Besides, they only conquer the planets I want them to.”

“Only the ones you want them to?” the Doctor asked. “You’re running a huge army, while helping them advance their technology, and keeping them in check? There’s no way you could do that on your own.”

The Rider just smiled.

“You are right, of course, Doctor,” came another, deeper voice from behind them. The Doctor and Charley turned around as another door on the opposite side of the room opened and another figure stepped out. He strode towards them with purpose, coattails and hair staying perfectly static despite the motion. “We are in this project together, of course.”

“Doctor?” Charley asked. “Do you know him?”

“Oh, I know him,” the Doctor said darkly. “You shouldn’t be doing this, it isn’t allowed.”

“Oh, but you know just how much we all enjoy breaking rules,” the man said. “Or are you pretending to be better than us?”

“Doctor, who is he?” Charley insisted.

“This is the other one,” the Doctor answered. “The Rider’s next incarnation.”

The second Rider walked in front of the two, where the first Rider walked to join him. The two Riders stood facing the Doctor, sinister smiles on their faces.

“This is what we’re doing, Doctor,” the second started.

“We’re rewriting the story,” the first finished.

“Is it not glorious?” the second asked rhetorically.

“So you’ve given the Rokudans advanced weapons. So what?” the Doctor demanded. “Do you think they’ll stay subservient? We’ve seen what they’ll do in the future, and it’s monstrous, far beyond what you want. And beyond that, do you really think they’ll conquer the universe for you? Allow you to control it?”

“We can make whatever stories we want now,” the first Rider boasted. “Aren’t you impressed? Whatever we want to happen, we can make it happen.”

“The Rokudans aren’t a powerful enough force for that,” the Doctor repeated. “They won’t conquer the whole universe for you, even the technology you’ve given them isn’t enough for that.”

“Are you genuinely so naïve as to think that we started with this?” the second Rider asked, almost incredulous. “Of course we didn’t start by giving them the best weapons, we’ve built it up as they’ve encountered resistance. They find somewhere they can’t conquer, we give them better weapons to do it with. It’s simple.”

“It’s disgusting!” Charley shouted. “You’re killing more people than you can imagine for what? So that you can live out your power fantasies?”

“Lower species would never understand,” the first Rider chuckled. “This one in particular just really loves her morals.”

“How dare you?” Charley demanded. “How dare-”

“Charley,” the Doctor interrupted. “I’m sorry, but they won’t listen.”

Charley growled in anger, but said nothing. He was right, they wouldn’t listen to her words. They had to find some other way to put a stop to their scheme.

“So, you want to conquer the universe with your pet army, and then what?” the Doctor asked.

“Whatever we want,” the Riders said in unison.

The Doctor sighed. “Just let me show you. Let me show you the planet Venra. They destroyed it, utterly, let me show you what this will cost the universe, please.”

The first Rider just laughed, but the second Rider looked a little more concerned. “Perhaps we should have a look at what happens.”

The first Rider groaned. “Okay, fine, if it gets the Doctor on board.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, at least partially genuine. “Now, if you’ll tell me where the TARDIS is-”

The two Riders stepped forward and grabbed the Doctor, who only had time to take hold of Charley before the Riders activated their Time Rings. The Doctor and Charley closed their eyes as they felt themselves sucked through the Vortex, barely shielded from the lashing Time Winds threatening to tear their very beings apart just outside the area of protection provided by the Time Rings. The journey seemed to last an endless instant, before finally they were deposited in a cloud of dust and smoke and noise. The Doctor and Charley didn’t have time to collect themselves before they were being pulled away from their landing by the Riders, dragged them behind a rock. Charley surveyed the scene: the ground was as blasted as it was after she saw the planet destroyed, but the sounds of screams and laser fire and explosions were all around, close and far away, and she felt like she couldn’t escape it. Even holding her hands over her ears, all she could hear was the sound of battle. Eventually the Doctor spoke.

“What happened? Where are we?”

“Venra!” the first Rider explained. “Like you requested, Doctor! What’s happening?”

“We’ve gone about one hundred years forward!” the second Rider shouted over the noise. “You threw off our calculations by grabbing that human you keep around!”

Charley was too distracted by the battle to even be indignant. The Doctor had told her that the burning of the planet had happened about thirty years after they had landed on Rokuda. That would mean this was around seventy years since the planet was burned, but it was still being fought over.

The Riders looked at a display on their Time Rings. “It says that this battle has been going on for decades!” the first Rider shouted. “This is what happens when we’re not there to help them!” she said to her future incarnation.

“But why are they fighting over it anyway?” the Doctor asked. “The planet was reduced to a wasteland!”

The second Rider checked his Time Ring. “He’s right,” he informed his past self. “The planet was burned seventy years ago, but the original inhabitants have been fighting to take it back ever since.”

“The people still want a planet that’s useless?” the first Rider questioned. “Why?”

“Because it was their home!” Charley answered. “They want their home back, they want to rebuild, they want their lives back. The lives that _you_ took from them!”

The Riders looked at each other, nodded, and grabbed the Doctor and Charley, warping them through time with the Time Rings again. They eventually landed on what Charley assumed was Venra again: the land looked much the same, and there was a very similar battle happening. Again, Charley could barely hear what was happening, but she caught a glimpse of some combatants: they weren’t Rokudans. They weren’t even humans like she saw on Venra. They were a different species entirely, still humanoid, but feline in features. She realised to her shock that the planet they were on was not Venra. This was a completely different planet that had also been destroyed and was now being fought over by the displaced remnants of its people.

“Where is this?” the Doctor asked.

“New Savannah,” the second Rider replied.

“We’ve gone forward another fifty years, but New Savannah was in our plans to conquer at about the same time as Venra,” the first Rider continued.

“I’m just surprised you’re capable of sitting still long enough to make a plan,” retorted Charley, earning herself a glare from the first Rider.

“That means this battle has most likely been happening for more than a hundred years,” the second Rider said.

“This isn’t possible,” the first Rider exclaimed. “This isn’t what we planned!”

“We’ll try one more, surely this can’t be everywhere,” the second Rider commanded. His past incarnation nodded, and they grabbed the Doctor and Charley again, using their Time Rings again. Much to everyone’s collective horror, the place they arrived was identical to the two planets they had just left: desolated, and being fought over.

“So where is this?” the Doctor demanded.

“Another hundred years,” the second Rider replied. “It’s all the same, exactly the same.”

“What world?” Charley asked, and regretted it. She felt a hole open up in the pit of her stomach and her mind went blank when the first Rider answered her.

“Earth.”

Charley lunged at the Rider, but the Rider hit her across the face with the back of her hand, sending Charley sprawling. “How dare you!” she heard the Doctor roar as she picked herself up, turning to see the second Rider holding the Doctor back from attacking the first Rider, who was backing away.

“Stop!” the second Rider commanded. “We shall get nowhere if we fight amongst ourselves.”

“How many?” Charley shouted. “How many people have suffered and died because of you two? How many more will have to die before you take responsibility?”

The second Rider looked slightly guilty, but the first refused to acknowledge what Charley had said. “We should go back,” she addressed her past self.

“Agreed,” he nodded, and took hold of Charley and the Doctor, pressing his Time Ring again. The four of them travelled through history, landing eventually back where they had started, on Rokuda in the grey central room. Charley sat down on the floor, unable to keep standing, overcome by what she had just seen.

“That was...educational,” the second Rider said.

“_That_ was disgraceful,” the Doctor scolded him. “Do you see now? Your plan will fail because the people of the worlds you destroy will never stop fighting back. They will never give in to you. You can’t succeed.”

“You’re right,” the first Rider admitted. “This plan was never going to work.”

The Doctor closed his eyes and sighed, glad to have finally gotten through to her. Charley stood up, still furious at the Riders, but she hoped that now they had seen what they had seen, they could work together to correct it and save the people whose lives had been destroyed.

“We can’t keep up with the need of the Rokudans to conquer everywhere at once,” the first Rider continued. The Doctor looked at her in shock. “We need to make it more efficient, or we’ll never succeed!”

Both the Doctor and the second Rider began to say something, but Charley got there first. “Have you learned nothing? Do you not see what you’ve caused? Do you not care about the lives you’ve destroyed?”

“Of course I do!” she replied. “But what’s a few billion gone? There are trillions more out there, always fighting for themselves, and for their homes! That’s the real story! We need more of that, we need to up the stakes!”

“Why do you want to take over the universe in the first place?” the Doctor asked. “What’s the fun in that?”

“Fun?” the first Rider asked. “That’s not got anything to do with it. It’s about the drama, the story! The mighty conquerors taking the universe, planets falling one by one, but we’re not here to kill! Once the universe is ours, we can make all the stories we want! The universe will be our canvas, and everyone will be part of the story! Can you think of anything better?”

“People deserve their freedom!” Charley argued. “We are more than just tools for you to play around with! We have lives, we have feelings, wants and needs, people are more than just pawns in your sick games!”

“And this is why I don’t engage humans,” the first Rider taunted her. “They’re just so...sensitive. They take everything so personally. I don’t have anything against you all, you’re just...not on the same level as us Time Lords.”

“Don’t you dare try to associate with me,” the Doctor fumed, cold fury in his voice.

“Ugh,” the Rider groaned. “You’ve been spending too much time around them. Come on, me, we have a universe to conquer.” She started to move in the direction of the door.

But the second Rider didn’t follow her. She turned back and fixed him with a quizzical stare. “Well, shall we?”

“I believe the Doctor may be correct,” the second Rider stood tall, holding his hands behind his back. “I believe this endeavour may have gone too far. We are not gods, nor should we be considered as such. We should put an end to this.”

The first Rider rolled her eyes hard enough that it looked uncomfortable and sighed as dramatically as she could. “Really? You’re giving up just because the Doctor and his friend told you off? You’re not as fun as I used to be.”

“And you are even less responsible than I remember,” the second Rider confronted her. “The Doctor is right, there is no story in controlling everything. A good story needs surprise, it needs conflict. If we control everything and always know where everything is going, there isn't any interest. There is always room for a predictable story, but when every story is as such, there isn’t anything to keep one engaged.”

“You sound just like the Doctor,” the first Rider shot back, and though she said it with disgust, Charley thought she heard a little admiration. Clearly she didn’t hate the Doctor as much as she was pretending she did. “Fine. I’ll do it myself. I can run it on my own.”

“No, you can’t,” the second Rider responded. “You couldn’t sit down long enough to plan even the basic idea, I had to do that for you.”

“I had the ideas, though!” the first Rider boasted.

“Indeed you did,” the second Rider agreed. “But without the both of us, none of this would have been possible.”

“But I don’t need you anymore,” the first Rider shouted petulantly, and Charley almost expected her to stick her tongue out at her own future self. “I’ll do it on my own!”

“No, you won’t,” the Doctor stepped forward. “This venture is finished. I’m putting an end to it.”

“Captain!” shouted the first Rider, and in seconds the Rokudan captain was by her side, pointing its weapon at the Doctor and Charley, but before it got the chance to use it, the second Rider retrieved a small sidearm from inside one of his pockets and shot the rifle out of the captain’s hands. He fired the pistol again at the rifle, destroying the weapon, before pointing it at the captain, who raised its arms and retreated wordlessly.

“Now then,” the Doctor continued. “I’m taking you back to my TARDIS. I’ll drop you off on Gallifrey. They can deal with you there.”

“I won’t go back,” the first Rider warned, but her future self answered “you don’t have a choice.” She hung her head in shame, and allowed the Doctor, Charley, and her future incarnation to escort her out of the building.

“Where is my TARDIS, by the way?” the Doctor asked.

“Oh, I suspect it will be in the impound lot,” the second Rider told him. “Follow me.”

He led them down a narrow side street, everything as grey as anything else, for a few minutes as they escorted the first Rider, who still had not said anything since leaving the main building. Eventually they reached a building slightly larger than the others.

“Your TARDIS will be in there,” the second Rider told them.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said.

“Where will you go now?” Charley asked him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But, as ever, the universe is my sandbox. I could go anywhere.”

“I have to warn you against interfering with people’s lives unnecessarily again,” the Doctor warned him.

“I quite understand,” the Rider bowed his head. The Doctor nodded, and began to walk, but the first Rider refused to walk with him. When he walked back to collect her, she raised her right hand and waved at him. Charley noticed that it was bare: she wasn’t wearing a Time Ring. The Doctor realised, and asked “Rider? Where’s your Time Ring?”

She smirked. “I gave it to the captain.”

Before anyone could react, the four of them were surrounded by Rokudans warping in around them, holding rifles to them. The first Rider began to slip away, but the second Rider retrieved another device from his jacket, a small remote. He pressed a button on the front, and an electromagnetic pulse emanated from it, disabling the Rokudans’ weapons. The Doctor turned to him.

“Thank you very much.”

“No problem, Doctor.”

However, when the Doctor turned back, he found the captain pointing a different rifle at him, and as he looked, in the time it had taken him to turn around, the other guards were all holding new, more advanced weapons. The Doctor saw that each of them had a spinning blue disc in the middle of the gun. He looked at the first Rider, who grinned back at him.

“A miniature fusion reactor powering the gun,” he pointed it out. “Even your EMP won’t stop them.”

“But, how?” Charley asked. “Just a second ago they didn’t have those.”

“Time travel,” the Doctor answered, turning ominously towards the first Rider, whose grin was widening as she realised what had happened.

“You...you mean, they went back in time?” she asked, incredulous. “Advanced their own technology retroactively? That’s amazing!”

“Amazing?” the Doctor demanded. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I’ve created an unbeatable army!” she either missed the point the Doctor was making, or ignored it completely. “Nobody will be able to stand up to the Rokudans now? Why don’t more time faring species do this?”

“Because-” the Doctor started to explain, but the captain prodded him in the chest with the barrel of its oversized gun, prompting him into silence.

“This is perfect!” the first Rider laughed. “Captain, take these three into custody, I have a new mission for you.”

He ignored her.

“Captain, I gave you an order. Take these three into custody,” she repeated.

“Arrest her.”

“WHAT?!” the first Rider shouted as two soldiers grabbed her, and the rest followed.

“Don’t you see?” Charley explained to her. “They can make their own weapons now. They don’t need you anymore.”

She continued to scream at him as the Rokudans dragged her away. The captain turned its attention back to the Doctor, and made an expression that he thought could be equated to a smile as he pulled the trigger. Before the gun could fire, the Doctor ducked, the shot going straight over his head, crossed his hands and pushed the gun upwards as he stood. The captain tried to get control of the gun back, but the Doctor kicked out one of its legs, and as the captain regained balance, he stepped to the side, grabbing the top of the gun with his right hand and the captain’s arm with his left, pushing the gun downwards and twisting it out of the captain’s grip, breaking its trigger finger as he did so. The captain yelped in pain as the Doctor removed the gun’s power source and tossed the weapon aside, grabbing the bottom of the captain’s head and pushing it back, the rest of the captain’s body following as it lost balance and fell backwards, the impact to its head stunning it long enough for the Doctor to shout “let’s go!”, Charley and the Rider following him into the building. As they entered, they immediately spotted the TARDIS, the only thing in the building not painted entirely grew. The Doctor hurriedly unlocked the door and they ran inside, shutting the door as they heard the captain get up and move towards the TARDIS.

"Doctor," Charley picked her jaw up from the floor. "What on Earth was that?"

"Venusian aikido," the Doctor replied, breathing a sigh of relief. "I used to be quite a dab hand at it a few lifetimes ago. The point is, we're safe now."

“As safe as any of us can be now,” Charley said.

“Good point,” the Doctor focused his attention back to the matter at hand.

“I can’t believe she gave them time travel,” the Rider said. “How did she not think this would happen?”

“She’s you!” Charley accused him. “Shouldn’t you have remembered this and tried to stop it?”

“She’s my past self, but I don’t remember any of this,” he countered. “I can’t be held responsible.”

Charley was about to tell him off again, but the Doctor spoke up. “He’s right,” he said. “Normally two seperate incarnations of the same Time Lord can’t meet, and if they do, only the older one will remember anything of the events that transpired.”

“Well,” Charley continued to glare at the Rider. “Isn’t that convenient.”

“If I had remembered any of this, I would have known not to do it,” the Rider glared back at Charley. “Or did you forget that my past self has just been arrested and I was nearly killed?”

“Hmm,” Charley intoned, but did not break her stare.

“The point is academic,” the Doctor attempted to break up the fight. “We need to find a way to stop the Rokudans.”

“If we don’t they could actually take over the universe now,” Charley said.

“It’s worse than that,” the Doctor continued.

“Worse?” Charley exclaimed. “How could it be worse?”

“They’re interfering in their own history, changing their own pasts,” the Rider explained.

“That sort of paradox could tear the very fabric of time apart at the seams,” the Doctor clarified. “Forget taking over the universe, if they go unchecked they could destroy it entirely, completely by accident.”

“That’s awful!” Charley was horrified by the prospect. She’d already seen several worlds destroyed that day, and the concept of the entire universe suffering the same didn’t bear thinking about.

“Even the Daleks know not to interfere in their own history,” the Doctor said.

“The Rokudans might not even know what their meddling could cause,” the Rider agreed.

“Or they don’t care,” the Doctor suggested. “They’ve never had a huge impact on a cosmic level, but left unchecked and they could end up worse than the Daleks ever managed to be.”

“What are they doing now?” Charley asked.

“Let’s take a look,” the Doctor said, flipping switches and pressing buttons as the TARDIS made a wheezing, groaning noise, but even more strained than usual. She sounded like she was struggling to breathe, Charley thought, and the central column appeared to have trouble moving, going up and down in fits and spurts instead of the smooth, continuous motion she was used to.

“The Web of Time is already starting to tear,” the Rider started to panic, the first time Charley had seen the otherwise eternally dignified man unnerved. “It just can’t keep up with the Rokudans.”

“Neither can anyone else, it would seem,” the Doctor muttered, and the Rider and Charley ran over to the console to see what the Doctor was looking at. Displays of multiple planets, some in real time, some in faster motion, all of them being invaded by the Rokudans. Overviews of the planets showed the Rokudan forces advancing over the planet impossibly quickly, and footage from the surface of each planet showed the same scene: the Rokudans tearing across battlefields, slaughtering every defense in their wake. Whenever a Rokudan squad on any planet started to struggle, the display blinked, and when the picture returned every squad on every planet had even bigger and more destructive weaponry. Planets where this was happening popped up on the screen constantly as their conquest spread, their armies reaching every planet within their reach and conquering them within hours.

Charley fell into a seat, despair taking hold. There didn’t seem to be anything that could stand up to them. Every battle they were watching, even the strongest and most impregnable defenses were being destroyed by the Rokudans as their weapons because more and more advanced and deadly by the minute.

“What can we do, Doctor?” she asked, desperate for any ideas.

“I…” for once, the Doctor was lost for words. “I’m not sure if there's anything we can do,” he said finally. Charley tried valiantly to hold back tears. The TARDIS’s engines became more and more strained every time the Rokudans changed their own history, and the display kept showing footage of them annihilating any resistance long after any of them had stopped watching. None of it made a difference. Nothing could stop them.

“...there may be something,” the Rider spoke up finally. Charley and the Doctor looked up, inquisitive. “Something I can do.”

“What?” the Doctor asked, desperation and hope mixing in his voice. “What can we do?”

The Rider looked at him, straight in the eyes. “Kill me.”

“What?” Charley asked, no longer angry at the man desperate to fix his own past mistakes.

“We both said it earlier,” he started to explain. “None of this would have been possible if my past self and I hadn’t worked together. This only happened because we met. If we go and find my past self, and kill her, so she doesn’t regenerate, I will never exist. We will never be able to meet, and this entire predicament will have never happened to begin with.”

“I…” the Doctor considered it. Genuinely considered it. “I think...that might work. But even if we manage to find her, I’m not sure if I have it in me to do it.”

“Neither do I,” Charley chimed in. “I couldn’t.”

“That isn’t a problem,” the Rider didn’t even flinch. “I’ll do it.”

The Doctor stood up. “No.”

“It might be the only way.”

“I won’t allow it,” he said firmly. “Killing your own past self? You could wipe all of your incarnations out of existence entirely. You would have never existed.”

“If that’s what it takes,” the Rider met the Doctor’s stare, unblinking. “I’ll do it.”

Charley held her breath. The solution made sense, she knew it did, but she didn’t know if the Doctor would allow it.

“I don’t like it,” the Doctor said.

“Neither do I,” the Rider admitted. “But my past self caused this problem. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for me. So you see, I’m not going to let you stop me now.”

“You can’t hold yourself responsible!” Charley cried out. “It wasn’t you who caused this.”

“Nevertheless, I might be the only one who can end it,” he replied, turning his attention back to the Doctor. “I’m doing this. I’m making it right. Now, are you going to help me, or will I have to get past you first?”

The TARDIS was silent save for the strained engines struggling against the collapsing universe as the Doctor and the Rider stared each other down. Finally, the Doctor spoke.

“Put your hand here,” he said pointing at the console. “It’s a link to the telepathic circuits. The TARDIS will be able to trace your past incarnation through it, but it won’t be easy.”

The Rider nodded “thank you,” and placed his hand on the console where the Doctor had pointed. The Doctor moved to the controls, pulling a lever and sending the TARDIS into motion. It lurched, and Charley fell over as the ship tried to trace the Rider’s biological signal back through his personal timeline to find the first Rider. The Rider hung onto the console as Charley and the Doctor struggled to stand, keeping his hand in the circuit. Charley heard a sizzling, searing noise, and saw the Rider’s agonised expression, then his hand: the energy and effort the TARDIS was exerting was burning his hand, but he stood firm, keeping his hand in the link as the TARDIS grew more unstable, shaking more and more, the engines struggling harder and harder, the Cloister Bell started to ring through the hallways, the Doctor shouted “Hold on, Charley!” and Charley couldn’t respond, she couldn’t even see where the Doctor was, or the Rider anymore, everything was just a blur as the TARDIS felt like it was shaking itself apart, and-

The TARDIS landed with an almighty crash, sending all three of them to the floor, the Rider clutching his burned hand. The central column stopped, although the Cloister Bell continued to ring, but weaker than it was before. The Doctor pulled himself up and walked over to the console, patting it and saying in a soft voice “thank you, old girl, I know it was hard,” as the lights barely shone. After some time, he turned to the Rider.

“Are you ready?”

The Rider nodded, retrieving his sidearm from his jacket and taking several deep breaths. The three of them approached the door, and stood as it opened out onto a sea of grey. They stepped out into a featureless cell: no windows, nothing to see. On their left, a grey door. On their right, a grey bench, upon which sat the downcast figure of the first Rider. She looked up with dead eyes that lit up with life when she saw her future self, and were filled with disappointment again when she saw the Doctor and Charley.

“Come to lecture me again?” she spat bitterly at them.

“Not this time,” the Doctor said, already sounding apologetic. “I really am sorry it came to this.”

“Are you here to break me out?” she lit up again, excitement reaching her voice. “So that we can defeat those ungrateful bastards who locked me up? Set everything right?”

Charley couldn’t look her in the eyes after that, and even the Doctor averted his gaze. The second Rider, however, met her gaze and did not blink.

“We are, indeed, defeating the Rokudans,” he explained. “But neither of us will survive.”

The first Rider’s smile disappeared. “What?”

“None of this would have happened if we hadn’t met,” the second Rider told his past incarnation. “So I have to make sure we never meet.”

“No,” she pleaded. “No, don’t, we can do it another way, surely, you can’t!”

“Thank you,” he said. “You shined so bright. I loved every second of being you.”

And as the first Rider pleaded, her future incarnation pointed straight at her right heart, and fired his shot. The pitiful figure slumped over, no glow or energy emanating from her. She was dead.

“Is...is it over?” Charley dared to ask.

“Yes,” the Rider replied. “It’s over. The universe will take a minute to reset, and none of this will have happened.” He turned to the Doctor. “Make sure it doesn’t happen.”

“Of course,” the Doctor promised. “It won’t happen. Thank you, Rider. You sacrificed everything.”

“Everything was at risk,” he shrugged. “It was the least I could do.”

“It was a glorious end to the story,” the Doctor shook his hand one last time.

“We’re all stories, in the end,” the Rider said. “At least I made it a good one.”

The Rider smiled, and Charley and the Doctor closed their eyes. When Charley opened them again, she was sitting in the TARDIS, looking through the transparent ceiling and watching the stars go by. She wondered for a second why her eyes had been closed and when she had fallen asleep, and then she remembered. The Rokudans. The destruction. The Rider. She felt a tear fall down her cheek as she remembered him. How he gave up his own life to save them, the memories of what had just happened flooding back. She slowly became aware that the Doctor was stood beside her. She turned to him.

“Is he really dead?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, clearly thinking about the same thing. “Maybe. Maybe not. But if he is, we’ll remember him.”

“He sacrificed everything to save everything,” Charley turned back to the stars. “A good story if ever I heard one.”

The Doctor and Charley stared out at the stars and wondered if the Rider was still out there somewhere, telling stories. After a while of stargazing, the Doctor walked over to the console.

“Where are we going, Doctor?” Charley asked.

“Rokuda,” he replied. “I want to make sure everything is in order. We made a promise, and we can’t let anything like that happen again.”

The Doctor pulled a lever as the TARDIS set into motion, pulling away from the world and in a familiar direction. Charley held on for balance as she looked up and watched the same stars fly past them again, the universe pass them by and in the blink of an eye her view was totally different. Galaxies swirled in the distance as they moved, and Charley caught the tiniest glimpses of planets and moons and asteroids and beauty as they appeared in sight and shot past faster than she could even realise she saw something, and hoped that this would be the last time she saw the planet.

The blue box materialised on Rokuda, and as the Doctor and Charley stepped out, they were overcome by how colourful everything was. They had landed in a side street, and different shaped houses jutted out at odd angles, all painted in various colours that caught the sunlight, a rainbow stretched out through the city. Rokudans walked down the street in front of them, their horse-like legs letting them stand on about equal height to the Doctor. One tipped their hat to the Doctor and Charley, greeting them with a jaunty “morning, guests!” and moving on.

“Well, I think it worked,” the Doctor said to Charley.

“You aren’t wrong,” came a familiar voice beside them. They turned, and to their left, standing tall as ever with his hands behind his back, was the Rider. Charley beamed, and had to hold herself back from hugging him.

“You survived!” the Doctor sounded surprised but ecstatic.

“I did indeed,” the Rider held his arms out to his sides, as if presenting himself. “The paradox prevented our interference, but I came out of it unharmed. I even received an unburned hand for my troubles,” he said, holding out said hand to punctuate his point.

“Oh, this is wonderful!” Charley couldn’t stop herself smiling.

“You’ve done a lot for the universe today,” the Doctor said. “I suppose the universe decided to pay it forward. How much do you remember?”

“Everything,” the Rider explained. “I suppose because I actively chose to create the paradox, it didn’t wipe me out.”

“I don’t know if temporal science works like that,” the Doctor admitted. “But I’m happy with the result.”

“Yes, I heard you didn’t take any of your Academy education to hearts,” the Rider smirked.

“Cheeky!” the Doctor retorted, and the Rider laughed properly for the first time since Charley had met him. “I am glad you’re alive, although my point does stand, I do have to warn you away from any interference in people’s lives.”

“I make no promises,” the Rider’s smirk persisted, but Charley could tell he was only being partially facetious. “What’s a good story without a shocking twist?”

“I leave the stories up to you,” the Doctor shook his hand once again, and turned to leave.

“Take care, Rider,” Charley said as she walked with the Doctor. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

The Rider waved as the Doctor and Charley walked back to the TARDIS. “The pleasure was all mine.”

“So,” Charley asked as they entered the ship. “Where shall we go next?”

The Doctor smiled at her, and Charley felt her heart skip a beat one more time. The universe was saved, and the hero was back to life. As stories went, Charley thought to herself, this was a good one, and the universe rarely sees a happier ending.

“The answer to that question is simple,” the Doctor said as he pulled a few levers, pressed a few switches, and set the TARDIS into motion, soaring into the sky and opening the transparent ceiling. He stood beside Charley and looked at the vast universe in front of them. “Wherever we want.”


End file.
